Hi there! If you've got a JoCopedia-related question or request, please leave a note on this page (don't forget to sign your name by typing '''<nowiki>--~~~~</nowiki>''' ) and I or one of the other mods will get back to you about it. Hope you're enjoying the wiki! --[[User:Bry|Bry]] 21:21, 29 April 2008 (EDT)

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If you find you can't edit, please see my user page to find out how to contact me, and I may be able to help you. --[[User:Rhaje|Rhaje]] ([[User talk:Rhaje|talk]]) 14:14, 6 August 2017 (EDT)

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== Some pages that appear to be superfluous ==

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''Moved to [[JoCopedia talk:Moderators/Archive (2008-05-11)]]''

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== Some questions about songs ==

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Moving the questions I posed in the forum over here, since Talk pages seem to be where it's at. Sweet!

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Where should alternate versions of lyrics should go? Some examples:

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* Linked version of the [[Flickr/Lyrics|Flickr lyrics]]. I just put it at the bottom of the existing lyrics - does that seem best?

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* In wiki terms, it seems like the demo versions of songs listed under other projects shouldn't have their own page; they're not different songs, just different versions. Just wanted to test that before editing the Songs page to link the demos to the existing pages (or should they be redirects?). Anyway - if that's the desired route, how to handle alternate lyrics like the demo vs. released final verses of [[Dance, Soterios Johnson, Dance|Soterios Johnson]]? Just add the additional verse and note its provenance?

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* I've been thinking that there might be some use to a non-ellided version of the [[Re Vos Cerveaux]] lyrics, which might be more readable by some folks. But clearly that wouldn't be the canonical version.

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--[[User:Thomast|Thomast]] 00:16, 30 April 2008 (EDT)

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::Thanks for all your work, Thomas! I really appreciate it. My thoughts on [[Re Vos Cerveaux/Lyrics]] and [[Flickr/Lyrics]] will be on their talk pages shortly (and I'll add them to [[:Category:RFC]]), but I'm not sure where to put the demo discussion, so I'll leave my thoughts here for the time being.

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::I'm inclined to think that demos should have their own pages, but I can see both arguments -- I don't disagree that they're the same songs, but it's in some ways messier to have to combine demos. For instance, demos can be purchased separately, they have their own song-detail page in the Store, they (as you note) occasionally have different lyrics -- I don't know. I wouldn't be against combining demos and "official" releases, provided those (relatively minor) concerns are dealt with somehow. --[[User:Bry|Bry]] 00:51, 30 April 2008 (EDT)

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== Copying outside sources for Wiki Help pages? ==

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As I was checking our original model, [http://tmbw.net/wiki/Main_Page This Might Be A Wiki], I noticed a really extensive help section that had a [http://tmbw.net/wiki/What_Is_A_Wiki What Is A Wiki] page, a [http://tmbw.net/wiki/Basic_Wiki_Formatting Basic Wiki Formatting] and a few others. So I gotta ask ... what's the legality/formality/propietary/anything else-aty of chopping some of that up and using it here? --[[User:MitchO|MitchO]] 22:38, 5 May 2008 (EDT)

:: Mitch: Well, that help text's not original to TMBW, as a cursory [http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Simple+editing+is+one+of+the+major+benefits+of+using+a+wiki.%22 Googling] tells me. However, I haven't traced it to its source, which means I can't tell you that it's usable. We're using a Creative Commons license, and it's more than possible that that text was released under a different license, I'm not sure which. So I'd hold off on taking it directly -- if you must, link to their pages until we can write up our own version. Or else search for a Creative Commons-licensed MediaWiki help text... --[[User:Bry|Bry]] 22:48, 5 May 2008 (EDT)

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:::Actually, according to [http://tmbw.net/wiki/This_Might_Be_A_Wiki:Copyrights TMBW's Copyrights page], the text is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license, which means we have to cite our source (in this case, TMBW), not profit from it, and JoCopedia must be under the same license. That is, ShareAlike means that anything derivative from that must also be ShareAlike, etc. That would be the catch -- we're currently Attribution-Noncommercial, but not ShareAlike. --[[User:Bry|Bry]] 22:51, 5 May 2008 (EDT)

:::::Well, not that I want to get anyone in trouble, but in terms of the low level legality of some internet stuff ... honestly, if that text is in SO many places, I would think we'd "blend in" rather safely. --[[User:MitchO|MitchO]] 22:58, 5 May 2008 (EDT)

My thoughts exactly. Well, close to. <s>Mine is more along the lines of if its not for profit, who cares?</s> Lets just leave it at close enough ;) /me doesn't want to get a lecture on copyright again <span class="nounderlinelink" style="color:#FF3399"><strong>~ [[User:Percephene|<span style="color:#FF3399">Percephene</span>]] ~ </strong><small> '''[[User_talk:Percephene|<span style="color:#FFC0CB">talk</span>]] [[Special:Contributions/Percephene|<span style="color:#FF3399">contribs</span>]]</small></span> <span style="color:#FF3399"><small>03:01, 06 May 2008</small></span>

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Pragmatically speaking, Mitch, no doubt you're right, but I don't think much of that as a policy. I'm not going to get on a soapbox and do the whole "JoCo cites [[Creative Commons]] as one of his greatest inspirations and he's jumped through hoops to keep aboveboard, copyright-wise, including taking [[When I'm 25 or 64]] off his CDs, etc., etc." bit, but I wouldn't look too favorably on copying help text. Alternatively, we could change our license to incorporate ShareAlike, in which case we could "steal" away. --[[User:Bry|Bry]] 23:06, 5 May 2008 (EDT)

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:Quick question, can I lift text from Uncyc, change it and then reuse it here? If I change it, is it kosher? I don't know/get how all this CC stuff works <span class="nounderlinelink" style="color:#FF3399"><strong>~ [[User:Percephene|<span style="color:#FF3399">Percephene</span>]] ~ </strong><small> '''[[User_talk:Percephene|<span style="color:#FFC0CB">talk</span>]] [[Special:Contributions/Percephene|<span style="color:#FF3399">contribs</span>]]</small></span> <span style="color:#FF3399"><small>03:37, 06 May 2008</small></span>

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::I'm in favor of making the original JoCopedia content licensed as +ShareAlike. TMBW excepts those items whose copyright is held by TMBG, and all the lyrics pages have a copyright with date on them. Could we do something similar? What's the downside, real or perceived, to ShareAlike?

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::: The original JoCopedia had the ShareAlike. I dropped it for two reasons:

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:::# To mirror JoCo's own CC license

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:::# Because I find ShareAlike to be unnecessarily restrictive on people who want to use the content.

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::: This discussion is exactly my point with point 2. We can't use that content unless we adopt ShareAlike (or let the particular page on which we steal content be licensed as ShareAlike). I don't want other people to ''have'' to license their work with ShareAlike, or CC at all. Just my 4 pence ;) --[[User:Agent Lex|Lex]] <small>([[User talk:Agent Lex|talk]] - [[Special:Contributions/Agent Lex|contribs]])</small> 16:35, 6 May 2008 (EDT)

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: Officially, we can't use any material from any site that uses Creative Commons with the Sharealike clause or the GFDL. That is, stuff from TMBW, Uncyclopedia, and Wikipedia is technically off-limits. However, for smaller things (templates and the like) that are behind-the-scenes, I doubt they'd point lawyers at us. And if they do send us a Cease-and-Desist letter, we can definitely remove the offending material pretty easily.

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: Help pages are getting into the gray area though. Copying their help pages (and other visible pages) may not incur their legal wrath, but it might seem to be in bad taste. Where possible, though, we should copy the heck out of the [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Contents public domain MediaWiki public domain documentation] instead. &mdash; <span style="font-variant:small-caps">[[User:Wesley|Wesley]]</span> | 05:44, 6 May 2008 (EDT)

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::I agree with Lex (above) that I'd rather not take JoCopedia to ShareAlike. I think Wesley's suggestion of taking the public domain help pages (and adapting them / adding JoCopedia-specific ones) is excellent. Off to start [[WikiProject:Help Pages]]. --[[User:Bry|Bry]] 16:53, 6 May 2008 (EDT)

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:::Agreed, even though I personally believe that well-traveled page is much better written. Shame. --[[User:MitchO|MitchO]] 17:00, 6 May 2008 (EDT)

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:::: I don't believe there's any problem with using the TMBW help pages as a starting point, though. Our page should develop organically, like a tomato vine, and their existing page can be the stick that the tomato vine climbs up. Ours should be similar--but never mistakable--for their page. (Yay [[JoCopedia:Editing_guidelines#Sprawl|tasty analogies]].) &mdash; <span style="font-variant:small-caps">[[User:Wesley|Wesley]]</span> | 20:06, 7 May 2008 (EDT)

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:::::Does this relate only to text or is code considered part of it too? Because I've sporked a few utility templates from Uncyc and some haven't been changed much if at all. I don't have the know how to code them myself, only adapt them. Do I have to QVFD all of them and wait for some code-whizz to rebuild them? Uncyc is a parody/joke site of which I am a member, I can ask them how they feel about their words/code being used and get permission if that helps? <span class="nounderlinelink" style="color:#FF3399"><strong>~ [[User:Percephene|<span style="color:#FF3399">Percephene</span>]] ~ </strong><small> '''[[User_talk:Percephene|<span style="color:#FFC0CB">talk</span>]] [[Special:Contributions/Percephene|<span style="color:#FF3399">contribs</span>]]</small></span> <span style="color:#FF3399"><small>12:44, 09 May 2008</small></span>

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::::::In lieu of any more discussion here I have identified which pages I've liberated and am (hopefully) calling in help to recode/rewrite them so they can be considered JoCopedia work not stolen Uncyc work. [[User:Percephene#To_Do|My to-do list]] shows the progress of this as well as other tasks. <span class="nounderlinelink" style="color:#FF3399"><strong>~ [[User:Percephene|<span style="color:#FF3399">Percephene</span>]] ~ </strong><small> '''[[User_talk:Percephene|<span style="color:#FFC0CB">talk</span>]] [[Special:Contributions/Percephene|<span style="color:#FF3399">contribs</span>]]</small></span> <span style="color:#FF3399"><small>05:19, 10 May 2008</small></span>

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== This Day in JoCo box ==

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''Moved to [[JoCopedia talk:Moderators/Archive (2008-05-11)]]''

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== [[Fan Projects]] ==

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No one's commented on the discussion there in over a week, so I'm going to assume it's safe to start moving one-shot creations off of that page. Try and stop me if you like.

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(Oh, and please help out. I'm not going to start moving anything quite yet, I think, at least not until various things I need to finish get finished.) --[[User:Bry|Bry]] 23:12, 6 May 2008 (EDT)

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: I finally got around to finishing this. All done. --[[User:Bry|Bry]] 00:25, 8 June 2008 (EDT)

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== Videos sections and Fan Content ==

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Currently, the sections on each video page are divided into Live Performances and Fan Videos. [[User:mtgordon|Mark]] suggests that Fan Videos should be further bifurcated into Covers (or rerecordings, or something) and Fan Videos (that use JoCo source tracks). It seems to make sense, and I'm all for the change.

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I also think that we should rethink the "related pages" for each song -- for one thing, there doesn't seem to be a logical place to put things like the audio recordings from [[Atlanta, GA: 2008-03-22]] and [[Chicago, IL: 2008-05-03]], and the "fan content" section, originally intended to encompass "everything fans make that isn't Video", has a confusing name that probably (along with there not, y'know, being all that much non-video fan content) discourages its use. (Full disclosure: The blame for deciding on the original "related pages" is mine, I believe; the credit for the suggestion to fix them belongs once again to Mark.) --[[User:Bry|Bry]] 23:12, 6 May 2008 (EDT)

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== "Create show" ==

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This really needs to be an extension -- it's too bad the [[Shows calendar]] extension is kludgey enough that it'd need another extension to get it to play nice. But in the meantime, I dare you -- I dare anyone -- to try to create shows using [[User:Bry/Create show page | this page]]. --[[User:Bry|Bry]] 16:54, 7 May 2008 (EDT)

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: PS: I'm going to clean up this page, particularly the stuff near the top, pretty soon. --[[User:Bry|Bry]] 16:54, 7 May 2008 (EDT)

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:: Bry: In case you weren't aware, [[mediawikiwiki:Extension:Inputbox|Inputbox]] is installed on here, and I'm fairly sure that's what they use on TMBW for their "new song" page helper. Whether or not that will work with your shows thing, I don't know. --[[User:Agent Lex|Lex]] <small>([[User talk:Agent Lex|talk]] - [[Special:Contributions/Agent Lex|contribs]])</small> 17:31, 7 May 2008 (EDT)

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::: I wasn't aware, Lex -- thanks for letting me know! Inputbox does some good things; for instance, type the proper page name for a show into this box:

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<inputbox>

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type=create

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preload=User:Bry/Shows template helper

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buttonlabel=Create new show

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</inputbox>

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:::and the proper things should happen, I think. The cheap hack I threw up there on [[User:Bry/Create show page]] handles things like linking to the proper page without your having to know the name of the page (and also it puts up a link to the page required by the [[Shows calendar]]), but I wouldn't call mine easier to use by a long shot. --[[User:Bry|Bry]] 17:46, 7 May 2008 (EDT)

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== "One-shot" live covers ==

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There is a growing list of songs that JoCo has played in concerts once (often in response to something from the audience) but haven't been played again and seem unlikely to be played again. ([[Do They Know It's Christmas]] in particular, but others, like [[The Saturday Boy]], etc., as well.) I'd be interested in shoving songs like that onto a "List of infrequently played live covers" or something less awkwardly titled -- then creating full pages for them if they get played again. Thoughts? --[[User:Bry|Bry]] 00:30, 8 June 2008 (EDT)

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:Agreed! I'm not in favour of one off covers being included in the full song catalogue. {{User:Percephene/sig}} <span style="color:#FF3399"><small>01:37, 09 June 2008</small></span>

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:: I don't think we have enough of them to justify the conversation yet. Are they less important than random old things like [[Cobras]] or [[Sweet Information]]? --[[User:MitchO|MitchO]] 21:51, 8 June 2008 (EDT)

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::: Well, you might have an argument with [[Cobras]], but I'd say [[Sweet Information]] (being at least the theme to many [[John Hodgman|Hodgman]]-related things -- I believe the audiobook as well as LGB, but I can't verify that at the moment) is more important. Mostly I'm just thinking that not every song he plays needs a full page, or can even have anything more than a stub that says, "He played this here." The clearest difference, in my eyes, is that [[Cobras]], [[Sweet Information]], [[One More Score]], etc., are JoCo originals -- the "infrequently played live covers" are a step further removed from the JoCo tree. --[[User:Bry|Bry]] 23:46, 13 June 2008 (EDT)

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==Forum's Page==

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It was suggested by Percephene (in the VFD for Bry's page), and I agree, that the forums should have a page. Before it is made I would like to ask/share my thoughts on how it should be done.

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<br>Firstly it would seem to me that there is no place currently on the wiki that it would fit in, so I propose that the link on the main page be changed to link to a wiki page, which contains the link to the forums.

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<br>Next, the content needs to be agreed on, what is written and in how much detail. Titles for sections could include such things as: History (when it was created, something about the server crash maybe), Etiquette (maybe some of the FAQ thread could fins a home here), In jokes (if there are any, none spring to mind). Basically I see it as holding an overview which could help new members and something that documents the history to an extent (JoCopedia is the repository of all JoCo related knowledge).

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<br>Making a link to the Bry page could be the motive for creating such a page but I think it could be an informative page. But would it fit in the wiki or not? --[[User:BenS|BenS]] 16:00, 13 June 2008 (EDT)

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:I have to agree, I don't feel the discussion being held on the JoCo forums is right. Discussions about the wiki should be held on the wiki IMO. I don't visit there (the JoCo forums) much and so I miss all the discussion about the site, a lot of which seems to be ppl asking for other ppl to make edits or create pages. Its a wiki! Just do it! But then of late I haven't had as much time to devote to the wiki so I can't complain too much ;) {{User:Percephene/sig}} <span style="color:#FF3399"><small>03:36, 14 June 2008</small></span>

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::Are we talking about two different things here? I thought Ben meant that there should be a wiki article about the forums. (And I've been trying to put discussion here, but sometimes it's quicker just to ask in the forums.) --[[User:Bry|Bry]] 23:42, 13 June 2008 (EDT)

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:::Yes it would seem Percephene was talking about something quite different to what I was talking about. You were band on what I was talking about. A wiki page about the forums. Sorry if I was unclear before. --[[User:BenS|BenS]] 06:46, 14 June 2008 (EDT)

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::::Ah sorry, I suggested both things (separate forums here AND a page about the forums to link to [[Bry]]) and misunderstood from your original comment which you were talking about Ben! I support both suggestions still of course ;) {{User:Percephene/sig}} <span style="color:#FF3399"><small>11:58, 16 June 2008</small></span>

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== Forums for the wiki ==

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''Splitting this off from the "Forum's page" discussion above, in which Percephene repeats her suggestion to have separate forums for JoCopedia.''

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I don't think a separate forum for the wiki is the proper solution to the problem of discussion about the wiki going on in the JoCo forums rather than in the wiki. This page (JoCopedia talk:Moderators) is intended to serve the purpose, actually, of a repository for wiki-questions and discussions, so I don't feel a separate forum for the wiki is called for. Forum people have tended to neglect this page, though, and ask their questions in-forum, and here are some possible causes I see:

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* They may '''not know this page exists''', or they may not know it's the proper venue for these questions;

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** The only real solution to this is to inform people -- especially new people logging in to the wiki, etc. I think it'd be a good idea to add a link to this page to the sidebar, and once I've finished writing this I'll ask Lex to do that (if he doesn't see this message first). Also, we should divert questions in the forums here.

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* They may find it '''easier to post in the forums''' (where they're already logged in, and where they're already familiar with the Way Things Work);

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** I see no good way to solve this, since no matter how easy we make the wiki, it's still easiest, at least cognitively, to stick with what's known (unless we make the wiki feel a lot more familiar to forum people, which might make it less familiar to people who know wikis).

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* They may feel it's '''more likely to get exposure in the forums''' -- there hasn't been a reliable number of people checking in on this page, and there's always someone watching the forums. (Besides questions and discussion, the forums also kinda get used as a noticeboard for announcements.) What's more, posts in the forums automatically bring the thread to the forefront -- edits to this page may well pass unnoticed, unless people put it on their watchlist, which they won't do unless they know about it, &c., &c.

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** To solve this, we basically, well, need more people to keep track of this page -- once we have an "active community" watching this page, questions asked here will get more responses (which hopefully will encourage people to post more): if a question sits here unanswered, its asker isn't going to come here first next time. As for announcements, we should try and get people to cross-post them there and somewhere on the wiki. (Something like a forum post that leads off, "Cross-posted to the noticeboard on the wiki"). At which point, we should probably call this page something like "[[JoCopedia:Noticeboard]]," instead of this unwieldy title. My bad.

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Another option, of course, is to solve the problem in the other way -- have the posts from the "JoCopedia" forum thread appear somehow here. Since every thread in the forums has its own RSS feed, we could put the feed from the JoCopedia thread somewhere on the wiki by installing something like [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Mafs/RSS this], which would require more work out of Lex. (Or, for a quick, Percephene-specific solution, Percephene could subscribe to the JoCopedia thread using a feed reader or have new posts delivered to her inbox.) --[[User:Bry|Bry]] 21:07, 16 June 2008 (EDT)

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--[[User:Bry|Bry]] 21:07, 16 June 2008 (EDT)

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:I can't begin to comment on all of this information but I thought it might be helpful if I give the way I have seen this page. Before now, when I just read what you wrote, I thought this page wasn't really intended for the more minor queries. I have often had things which I have been a bit unsure on why they are the way they are but did not feel anywhere could be used to ask questions. they didn't seem to fit in anywhere. I agree with the renaming suggestion as the current title gives the impression it is for inter-moderator discussion. Not sure noticeboard would be the right name if you are encouraging queries to appear here. That is too specific, it needs more of an umbrella term. Just my thoughts. --[[User:BenS|BenS]] 12:06, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

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::I made a mistake, in my brain-fuzz, in restating my case for forums here, which I admitted and apologised for. The fact that I miss the conversations on the JoCo forums is not and never was my main point in suggesting the idea and I know I can easily fix that situation if its a big deal for me (it isn't.) Since everyone else seem to think its unnecessary, this discussion is too, surely? {{User:Percephene/sig}} <span style="color:#FF3399"><small>07:51, 23 June 2008</small></span>

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::: (I missed this comment, or I'd've replied sooner.)

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::: Percephene, I'm sorry if I made the above sound like some kind of personal attack! Although I don't agree with your proposed solution, that doesn't mean the problem you identify is less of a problem or that possible solutions shouldn't be explored, IMO. That's what I was trying to do above, figure out ways to make the wiki more accessible and navigable. (I assume your comment was directed at me, because Ben's comment mostly offered advice to improve this page, which I found both helpful and interesting.) --[[User:Bry|Bry]] 07:40, 26 June 2008 (EDT)

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::(Just noticed this, I should keep up more often)

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::I can certainly install that extension once I get home this evening, if you want to keep a forum thread for wiki announcements. I can also change the sidebar, since far as I know there's been no discussion on the proposed changes. In fact, I'll go do that now... --[[User:Agent Lex|Lex]] <small>([[User talk:Agent Lex|talk]] - [[Special:Contributions/Agent Lex|contribs]])</small> 07:56, 23 June 2008 (EDT)

:::Oh look, a use for <nowiki>{{Title}}</nowiki>!!!! {{User:Percephene/sig}} <span style="color:#FF3399"><small>01:35, 26 June 2008</small></span>

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:::: Better to move the page, I'd say, to reduce confusion (and make it easier to link to it). (Although we need to figure out what the new page should be called. I'm not attached to "Moderator's Noticeboard" either.) --[[User:Bry|Bry]] 07:30, 26 June 2008 (EDT)

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== RSS extension ==

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For the record, I installed [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Mafs/RSS this] which Bry mentions above. It seems to not work because [http://www.php.net/iconv this] isn't installed on the server, and I can't install it myself. Sorry. I've disabled the extension now. --[[User:Agent Lex|Lex]] <small>([[User talk:Agent Lex|talk]] - [[Special:Contributions/Agent Lex|contribs]])</small> 18:26, 26 June 2008 (EDT)

Through some research, I was able to figure out that the PAX show actually took place on the 25th of August 2007 instead of the 24th. I can't figure out how to edit that part of my show entry. Help! [[User:Encubed|Encubed]] 11:26, 21 June 2008 (EDT)

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== Consistency for Little Gray Books links ==

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As I continue to edit and fix up song pages, particularly with all the new info from "A Talk With JoCo", I'm finding more and more than we have no set way to link, or even describe, the Little Gray Book Lectures. Sometimes we call it Little Gray Book, sometimes Lectures; sometimes it's externally linked to Hodgman's site, sometimes to the section in our internal Hodgman page, sometimes not at all. Can we have a discussion on what the "official" way to do it is? Since it almost always tends to appear after John's name, I don't think linking it to his page again ("[[John Hodgman]]'s [[John_Hodgman#Little_Gray_Book_Lectures|Little Gray Book Lectures]]") is very efficient. Unfortunately, the [http://www.littlegraybooks.com/ external website] hasn't had any real info that warrants a link in quite some time. Is it time for LGB to have it's own entry on JoCopedia, so we can link to it? Or maybe we don't link at all, since we know John's link will assuredly be on the page also? --[[User:MitchO|MitchO]] 10:24, 9 July 2008 (EDT)

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:Wow, that's a good question. Gut reaction: Make [[Little Gray Book]] and [[Little Gray Book Lectures]] redirects, for the time being, to [[John Hodgman#Little Gray Book Lectures]]. Then eventually turn [[Little Gray Book Lectures]] into an article on LGB, and move some of the stuff from the section under Hodgman to the new article (with [[Little Gray Book]] redirecting to the new article). Plausible? --[[User:Bry|Bry]] 10:44, 9 July 2008 (EDT)

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::Yeah, I'm guessing it does need its own article eventually. It's clearly important enough, particularly as we find more and more needs to link to it. But until then, it goes to my anal retentive concern about back to back links: John's name and the LGB link, back to back, going to the same page: "[[John Hodgman]]'s [[John_Hodgman#Little_Gray_Book_Lectures|Little Gray Book Lectures]]". I have a mildly Gordian Knot suggestion to solve it though: Do we really need to call them "John Hodgman's ..." on the song pages? Both the redirect and the article will explain that they came about because of John, which is where info on the LGB belongs, not on the song page. Bottom Line: I hate to say it, but we delete John's name on the song pages as "owner" of LGB, and just link LGB. --[[User:MitchO|MitchO]] 11:23, 9 July 2008 (EDT)

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::: If that's the objection, I'd rather stub [[Little Gray Book Lectures]] than remove the reference to Hodgman every time it appears. (I think the link to Hodgman is necessary.) --[[User:Bry|Bry]] 12:48, 9 July 2008 (EDT)

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:::: Really? It's less of an objection and more of a nitpick. It goes to that "info belongs where it belongs" thing to me; the fact that it was John's gig isn't pertinent to, say, DSJD. The person who doesn't know anything about it will click and see "Oh, it was John Hodgman's dilly-o". But it sounds like the stub is a sufficient halfway point between the concepts. --[[User:MitchO|MitchO]] 12:59, 9 July 2008 (EDT)

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==Referencing The man himself==

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OK, I have wondered how to reference Jonathan on the wiki for a while and when editting it I tend to write JoCo, this is evident on the press and jawbone interview pages. What is the party line on this, I know from the forum that Mitch thinks that we should refer to him as Jonathan. What is the general consensus on this. Also once one is reached I think it should be added to some page like the editting guidelines or some such for future reference. IT shouldn't be hard to find out what to call him. Thanks for the help in advance. --[[User:BenS|BenS]] 12:15, 9 July 2008 (EDT)

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:(Oh, God, the editing guidelines. What a mess they are, and I've been meaning to rewrite that page the same way I've been meaning to reformat the forum FAQ.)

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: Spiff and I defaulted to "Coulton," but Mitch likes "Jonathan" (sounds less stuffy) and I don't mind. "JoCo" is even less stuffy; I don't object to that either, but I don't think that's what we should use universally. I think "JoCo"'s appropriate for places like speech markers to denote who's speaking, as in your Jawbone transcriptions, Ben. I'm open to suggestions. (Also note that "Jonathan" can't be used adjectivally the way the others can -- that is, one can't say "a Jonathan song" the way one can say "a JoCo song" or "a Coulton song.") --[[User:Bry|Bry]] 12:46, 9 July 2008 (EDT)

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:: I've used "[[Jonathan Coulton]]" the first time on any article (including link, obviously), and "Jonathan" as the default thereafter. The exceptions I've done are when last names are already listed in the sentence/paragraph for other reasons (I forget where this was) and in Bry's above adjective scenario: I used JoCo in those cases. Bry knows this, but I feel that a semblance of comfortability needs to be portrayed in the way things are phrased; after all, anyone reading this has, at the very least, clicked on "Wiki" from Jonathan's site already. We crack a few jokes in various places, including the front page and we repeat Jonathan's jokes in blog entries and interviews. My preference to Jonathan over JoCo is that, despite the familiarity feeling of the latter, it's more of a shortcut notation than an actual name; didn't we discuss on the boards once that people rarely call him "JoCo" out loud? --[[User:MitchO|MitchO]] 12:57, 9 July 2008 (EDT)

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== Vandal Watch ==

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+

I didn't think we'd have to worry about this so soon but it seems we may have to keep an eye on new users we don't recognise and especially, IP edits after I noticed [http://www.jonathancoulton.com/wiki/index.php?title=First_of_May%2FLyrics&diff=7328&oldid=1597 this.]

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Why someone would change all the "lay"s to "thing"s but leave "f**king" in boggles the mind, but I have undone this edit. Just thought I'd give everyone a heads up to keep an eye out for vandalism.

:Argh, I can't believe this is starting again (or else that this never stopped). Apparently there's some kind of contingent, particularly among (sigh) YouTube commenters, who actually believes that the lyrics are "favorite thing." (See [http://www.jonathancoulton.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=328 this thread] on the forums.) Had I remembered the fact, I'd have asked JoCo about that directly, even though the lyrics are very obviously "favorite lay." To quote myself, from aforelinked thread: <blockquote>Hm. On reflection, I guess it could be "favorite thing," except it doesn't rhyme with "May" or "today," doesn't echo the first syllable of "lady," has never been transcribed in that fashion, doesn't make a whit of sense, and doesn't sound like it anyway."</blockquote>

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: Not so much "vandalism" as willful ignorance, but it seems to me vandalism would be preferable, if only because a vandal is less likely to come back and try to re-"fix" the page, then get all snippy when we say the "fix" is obviously incorrect. --[[User:Bry|Bry]] 08:44, 1 August 2008 (EDT)

:::I didn't know about the "thing" contingent, however I stand by the edit message. Having to patrol IP edits for this sort of unresearched and clearly wrong editing is frustrating and annoying. We have/are worked/ing hard on verifying the lyrics and we don't want them getting mucked up. I don't think the comment was harsh, I did say please. {{User:Percephene/sig}} <span style="color:#FF3399"><small>05:57, 02 August 2008</small></span>

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== Shows pages ==

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Formatting- OK I know this was discussed a lot back in the early days of the wiki and I lost track of the discussion and have never been involved with the shows section so never worried about it. However, upon looking through it for my bot I noticed that it was painful. There is no consistent style to the pages. I am going to go through and give them a consistent style right now so would like to know what that style should be. I have planned to follow the style in [[Alexandria, VA: 2007-08-31|this]] shows page. Is this OK and the right style to follow? This needs to be done for my bot to work properly its current output is wrong because of this so it will need to be run again, I warn thee. --[[User:BenS|BenS]] 14:05, 2 August 2008 (EDT)

:: Thanks for that confirmation Lex, I am about 2 thirds through the show pages. I have probably made mistakes but I will finish off the rest tomorrow. I have run my bot 1 last time tonight. If anyone wants to see the results look [[SongStats|here]], the page is by no means finished and the numbers may not yet be correct. I am working on it. --[[User:BenS|BenS]] 18:11, 2 August 2008 (EDT)

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This is just to say the topic of show pages and statistics on shows are being discussed on the forums in [http://www.jonathancoulton.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=743&page=2#Comment_31779 this thread]. I am posting this here to ensure all those in the wiki community are aware of it. This thread could have large effects on the way we format shows in the future to aid the formation of automated statistics and such like. Please drop on by and join the discussion. --[[User:BenS|BenS]] 09:16, 4 August 2008 (EDT)

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== Songs by Concert ==

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Due to the fact no one has replied to what I said on the thread in the forum 4 days ago I thought I would copy my post over to here and see if it gets more attention. I said:

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<blockquote>I just ran my bot again now that we got the PAX setlist finalised and it has been two shows since I last ran it. This time it has added the SongNav bar and a footer saying it was made by a bot and the last time it was updated. We have a problem though as built into the the SongNav bar template has a bit of code that means page is added to the category named after the bit after the forward slash in the page name. Not sure how you want to resolve this but currently they are all in two categories.</blockquote>

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Fair enough it is not hugely urgent to get this sorted but I can't stand it being like it is, the curse of the perfectionist. --[[User:BenS|BenS]] 12:25, 8 September 2008 (EDT)

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: I noticed the post the first time, and briefly looked into the code for the template. There is an ifexist scenario there, but unfortunately I don't know enough to modify it. My thought process was to basically say "if /xxx AND NOT /Concert, then category:xxx". --[[User:MitchO|MitchO]] 14:48, 8 September 2008 (EDT)

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:: "This was a triumph, I'm making a note here huge success, it's hard to overstate my satisfaction" The wording of that song was too perfect not to use in this case, I have just fixed that final problem that was left with the bot, template Concerts has been redacted. I noticed there was an optional parameter to stop it adding the template, I used it. As I type my bot is removing the template from all the pages. With this I think we can close the book on this project and just run it occasionally when necessary. I think it all came together just nicely. --[[User:BenS|BenS]] 07:09, 18 October 2008 (EDT)

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== Wiki formatting bugs ==

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I changed a lone ' to <nowiki>[special ']</nowiki> in the [[Overhead]] page. This fixed the problem where the wiki formatting was dropping the first character off links and appending a ] instead. Of course, the bug isn't showing on the old revision page but it was there i tell you!

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: Thanks, but we think that those special characters are what's causing the screwups. Next time, could you just fix what's wrong manually? I don't want these problems to stew and reappear later. Thanks! --[[User:Agent Lex|Lex]] <small>([[User talk:Agent Lex|talk]] - [[Special:Contributions/Agent Lex|contribs]])</small> 09:10, 6 November 2008 (EST)

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== Re: Your Brains ==

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It would appear that the debate has finally been settled that the song title does infact have a colon. How do we want to deal with this? Shall I just write a bot to search through every page looking for instances of "Re Your Brains" and replacing it with "Re: Your Brains"? Also the song page name will want changing? Either way what is our plan of attack. --[[User:BenS|BenS]] 13:26, 28 November 2008 (EST)

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: I suppose we change everything, yes. Ben, will you be so good as to write said bot? No real hurry, of course. Also, I suppose Re <del>Your</del> Vos Cerveaux needs a colon now too. --[[User:Bry|Bry]] 17:31, 28 November 2008 (EST)

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:: I believe I have now changed all things that used Re Your Brains or associated trivia. Might want to check my SotD and what I have written on the [[Re: Your Brains]] page. Next the far smaller job of Re: Vos Cerveaux. Took a little longer to do than I thought it would. --[[User:BenS|BenS]] 15:29, 29 November 2008 (EST)

Can I have my own fan page? I'm slightly notable, though perhaps not to the JoCo community per se.

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http://www.philosophy.pdx.edu/faculty/hill.php

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--[[User:R. Kevin Hill|R. Kevin Hill]] 13:30, 24 December 2008 (EST)

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== What's up with the pharmacological pages? ==

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Why is it that hitting "Random Page" will pull up a page about some sort of medicine more often than not? It's a little annoying. It looks like the work of a bot in July, but I've been wrong before. --[[User:Mr. President|Mr. President]] 16:46, 10 September 2009 (EDT)

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:You are quite right that it is the work of a bot and it is all due to be deleted however, those with the power to do it don't have the means to mass delete the quantity of pages and those with the means to mass delete don't have the power so it hasn't got done. Hopefully it can get sorted in the near future. --[[User:BenS|BenS]] 06:15, 11 September 2009 (EDT)

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== Drug pages????? ==

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Almost every time I click on the [[Special:Random|Random Page]] link, it comes up with a page about a drug. These pages were put up by a user called Order, who doesn't have a user page or a talk page. I've seen a notice about this here before, but I thought I would reiterate. Are these pages relevant to Jonathan Coulton or his works? [[Special:Contributions/203.189.4.118|203.189.4.118]] 23:58, 23 September 2009 (EDT)

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::Nope, not JoCo related at all, just spam. These are there to drive traffic/increase page rank of the external site these articles link to. I would suggest eliminating all of these pages. It looks like Google has caught [http://www.google.com/search?q=%22drug+uses%22+jocopedia&num=50&filter=0 31 of them], but it clearly hasn't found them all (e.g. [[Study Habits]]). <strike>Afraid I don't know how to delete pages on a Wiki. I'm guessing there isn't a formal Vote for Deletion on JoCopedia.</strike> It looks like the desired fix is to use [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Nuke Special:Nuke] to eliminate all edits from [[Special:Contributions/Order]] [[User:ConspicuousCompiler|ConspicuousCompiler]] 07:18, 25 September 2009 (EDT)

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:::Looks like they're all still around... perhaps someone has some mod powers and can delete eventually? [[Special:Contributions/70.96.79.187|70.96.79.187]] 17:08, 22 June 2010 (EDT)

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::::Edits by Xuebao appear to be spam as well. Though they reference shoe and the NFL rather than drugs. [[Special:Contributions/68.62.118.130|68.62.118.130]] 00:44, 23 July 2010 (EDT)

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About drug pages; I did full wiki namespace lookup. About 300 spam articles (mostnof allready empty) tagged with VFD-template. There should'nt be adcrap anymore. I update spamcleanup-information to my userpage, link is on my signature. --[[User:SakariNylund|SakariNylund]] 04:41, 15 January 2011 (EST)

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== Whole lotta spam pages ==

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I came here to look at music, not buy Prozac. Thinking this wiki could use a little more moderation. [[Special:Contributions/90.211.143.173|90.211.143.173]]

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== Recent talk page spam ==

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There have been a bunch of [[Special:RecentChanges|recent changes]] to '''Talk:''' and '''User talk:''' pages with one sentence weirdness. None of it looks to be advertising, but sort of seems like it's checking for spam catchers? All of the edits are by IPs (no logged in users) with edit summaries matching /^\w{7,}$/. If it's possible to automatically revert or prevent such edits, that'd be cool. Otherwise, at least that's a basis for trawling the history and banning the relevant IP addresses from non-logged-in editing.

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* On further inspection, there are plenty of edits that aren't in those namespaces, and there are some bot edits to sections which simply have the section title and no additional text in the description history. Looks like this has been ongoing for several days, and other editors have been combating it. I reverted the defacing changes from the last day that weren't already caught, but this is a process best done by a machine, not by humans. [[User:ConspicuousCompiler|ConspicuousCompiler]] 04:04, 14 August 2011 (EDT)

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::Also, all pages [http://www.jonathancoulton.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Special%3ANewPages&namespace=all&username= created since August 10th] have been made by spammers and need deletion. [[User:Boring Manager Rob|Boring Manager Rob]] 13:13, 14 August 2011 (EDT)

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==More Spam==

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(''moved from [[User talk:Boring Manager Rob#More Spam]]'')

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:: I happen to have solved this problem over in a wiki I manage, but only by literally turning off the ability to add links in pages. Spam pages ''always'' contain links, so their spambot submissions get rejected and the bots don't return. But the cost is not being able to add (new) links yourself to other sites. You could, of course, create a template prior to the blocking which allows for URLs, then invoke the template, if you don't feel that's too limiting. This fix requires enhancing the wgSpamRegexp setting in LocalSettings.php to include any attempt at http links: "https?:" [[Special:Contributions/99.46.136.183|99.46.136.183]] 00:42, 26 September 2011 (EDT)

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::: Well...while that might cut some of the spam, the majority of the recent attacks have nothing to do with links at all, instead replacing pages with random nonsense ([http://www.jonathancoulton.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Re:_Your_Brains&oldid=16769 example]) so it seems a bit unnecessary to disable links. The hardest-hit pages have been temporarily protected, but there's nothing I can do about new pages being created other than deleting them. The man who has the power to do something major about this such as disabling anonymous editing (just an example, not saying this is a good idea) and knows more about this than I do is [[User:Bry|Bry]] but he hasn't been around that much. [[User:Boring Manager Rob|Boring Manager Rob]] 16:34, 26 September 2011 (EDT)

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::::Over at TMBW, anonymous edits trigger a CAPTCHA, maybe that could be a solution? I notice there's no such protection on here. It seems like a good idea. -[[User:Apollo|Apollo]] ([[User talk:Apollo|colloquia!]]) 18:51, 27 September 2011 (EDT)

::::::Weird! Well, I haven't been paying very much attention to recent changes lately, but if what the anons are doing is still creating nonsense talk pages, then I think a good thing would be to have your bureaucrat revoke the "<tt>createtalk</tt>" right from anonymous users. That wouldn't handle spam on pre-existing pages, but that's a bit easier to manage for the time being. I think the only bureaucrat you have has been inactive for a while, but maybe someone could contact him? -[[User:Apollo|Apollo]] ([[User talk:Apollo|colloquia!]]) 21:42, 27 September 2011 (EDT)

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::::::Oh, actually, I just noticed that anonymous users on here also have the "<tt>createpage</tt>" right, as well! that should definitely be revoked too. -[[User:Apollo|Apollo]] ([[User talk:Apollo|colloquia!]]) 16:28, 28 September 2011 (EDT)

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:::::::Bry said on the forums he would be back "soon". Removing <tt>createpage</tt> for IPs would be effective in stopping most spam, but there's occasional one-time anons that create pages for shows so there's no easy answer. Even so I'm leaning towards revoking that right. It's not my decision to make however. [[User:Boring Manager Rob|Boring Manager Rob]] 21:31, 28 September 2011 (EDT)

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::::::::I've been following your discussion and I'm in favour of revoking <tt>createtalk</tt> and <tt>createpage</tt> rights for anonymous users. (I'm also in favour of reinstating CAPTCHA; I suspect the decline in spam following its removal could be attributed to other factors.) Now that we have more active mods, I think there's an opportunity to do some interesting things around here. Perhaps we could move this conversation to a more "central" location, like [[JoCopedia_talk:Moderators]]? I'd like your suggestions to result in changes, so the discussion should be as public as possible. --[[User:Sara|Sara]] 23:33, 28 September 2011 (EDT)

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:::::::::Sorry, this is what "soon" means apparently. (I'm not really cut out to be a wikimod: coming back to see a whole pile of spam is too dispiriting for me to deal with on a regular basis.) As [[User:Apollo|Apollo]] writes on my [[User talk:Bry|talk page]], I don't have the "power to do [anything] major". Lex does, but I haven't heard from him in years. I suppose JoCo/Scarface are your best bets for contacts. --[[User:Bry|Bry]] 13:39, 1 June 2012 (EDT)

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::::::::::'''followup!''' i contacted scarface again and i'm glad to say recaptcha has been installed on the wiki (check out the [http://www.jonathancoulton.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Special:UserLogin&type=signup account creation form]). it seems like there are still a few spam accounts being made here and there, but i think the numbers will continue to dwindle over a period of time. also, anonymous users are currently unable to edit. we'll see where this goes, but y'all should get yourselves editing! -[[User:Apollo|apollo]] ([[User talk:Apollo|colloquia!]]) 21:14, 25 September 2012 (EDT)

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== templates ==

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hello, jocopedians! i think it would be a Good Thing if JoCopedia employed more templates to standardise pages. in that vein, i put together a little [[User:Apollo/Sandbox/Template:Show|shows template]], which can be seen in action [[User:Apollo/Sandbox|here]]. i don't necessarily think you should use this particular thing, but i do think a template should be used for show pages, as well as songs and other similar content pages. so i figured i would bring it up here, and yeah! -[[User:Apollo|apollo]] ([[User talk:Apollo|colloquia!]]) 13:46, 17 December 2011 (EST)

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==Spammer==

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http://www.jonathancoulton.com/wiki/Special:Contributions/Kunaguers is doing nothing but add spam links. I've reverted him(?) several times now, but he clearly needs to be blocked.[[User:DesertFly3|DesertFly3]] ([[User talk:DesertFly3|talk]]) 23:52, 9 March 2014 (EDT)

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* I was gonna fix this but apparently I went inactive for too long and got demodded or something. D'oh! [[User:BLT|BLT]] ([[User talk:BLT|talk]]) 18:06, 10 March 2014 (EDT)

Any chance that we can get the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox Infobox] extension enabled here? Looks like it requires the [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Scribunto Scribunto] extension as well.

:Maybe. I'll look into it. It says it doesn't necessarily work with all wikis. [[User:Rhaje|rhaje]] ([[User talk:Rhaje|talk]]) 10:13, 29 June 2017 (EDT)

Latest revision as of 18:14, 6 August 2017

Hi there! If you've got a JoCopedia-related question or request, please leave a note on this page (don't forget to sign your name by typing --~~~~ ) and I or one of the other mods will get back to you about it. Hope you're enjoying the wiki! --Bry 21:21, 29 April 2008 (EDT)

If you find you can't edit, please see my user page to find out how to contact me, and I may be able to help you. --Rhaje (talk) 14:14, 6 August 2017 (EDT)

Some pages that appear to be superfluous

Some questions about songs

Moving the questions I posed in the forum over here, since Talk pages seem to be where it's at. Sweet!

Where should alternate versions of lyrics should go? Some examples:

Linked version of the Flickr lyrics. I just put it at the bottom of the existing lyrics - does that seem best?

In wiki terms, it seems like the demo versions of songs listed under other projects shouldn't have their own page; they're not different songs, just different versions. Just wanted to test that before editing the Songs page to link the demos to the existing pages (or should they be redirects?). Anyway - if that's the desired route, how to handle alternate lyrics like the demo vs. released final verses of Soterios Johnson? Just add the additional verse and note its provenance?

I've been thinking that there might be some use to a non-ellided version of the Re Vos Cerveaux lyrics, which might be more readable by some folks. But clearly that wouldn't be the canonical version.

Thanks for all your work, Thomas! I really appreciate it. My thoughts on Re Vos Cerveaux/Lyrics and Flickr/Lyrics will be on their talk pages shortly (and I'll add them to Category:RFC), but I'm not sure where to put the demo discussion, so I'll leave my thoughts here for the time being.

I'm inclined to think that demos should have their own pages, but I can see both arguments -- I don't disagree that they're the same songs, but it's in some ways messier to have to combine demos. For instance, demos can be purchased separately, they have their own song-detail page in the Store, they (as you note) occasionally have different lyrics -- I don't know. I wouldn't be against combining demos and "official" releases, provided those (relatively minor) concerns are dealt with somehow. --Bry 00:51, 30 April 2008 (EDT)

Copying outside sources for Wiki Help pages?

As I was checking our original model, This Might Be A Wiki, I noticed a really extensive help section that had a What Is A Wiki page, a Basic Wiki Formatting and a few others. So I gotta ask ... what's the legality/formality/propietary/anything else-aty of chopping some of that up and using it here? --MitchO 22:38, 5 May 2008 (EDT)

Mitch: Well, that help text's not original to TMBW, as a cursory Googling tells me. However, I haven't traced it to its source, which means I can't tell you that it's usable. We're using a Creative Commons license, and it's more than possible that that text was released under a different license, I'm not sure which. So I'd hold off on taking it directly -- if you must, link to their pages until we can write up our own version. Or else search for a Creative Commons-licensed MediaWiki help text... --Bry 22:48, 5 May 2008 (EDT)

Actually, according to TMBW's Copyrights page, the text is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license, which means we have to cite our source (in this case, TMBW), not profit from it, and JoCopedia must be under the same license. That is, ShareAlike means that anything derivative from that must also be ShareAlike, etc. That would be the catch -- we're currently Attribution-Noncommercial, but not ShareAlike. --Bry 22:51, 5 May 2008 (EDT)

Ugggh this stuff always gives me a headache. Can I lift text from Uncyc, change it and then reuse it here? ~ Percephene ~ talkcontribs02:54, 06 May 2008

Well, not that I want to get anyone in trouble, but in terms of the low level legality of some internet stuff ... honestly, if that text is in SO many places, I would think we'd "blend in" rather safely. --MitchO 22:58, 5 May 2008 (EDT)

Creative Commons - +ShareAlike?

(note: this discussion may, at some point, want to move to Talk:Main Page. Or it might not. I don't mind leaving it here for now. --Lex(talk - contribs) 16:35, 6 May 2008 (EDT)
My thoughts exactly. Well, close to. Mine is more along the lines of if its not for profit, who cares? Lets just leave it at close enough ;) /me doesn't want to get a lecture on copyright again ~ Percephene ~ talkcontribs03:01, 06 May 2008

Pragmatically speaking, Mitch, no doubt you're right, but I don't think much of that as a policy. I'm not going to get on a soapbox and do the whole "JoCo cites Creative Commons as one of his greatest inspirations and he's jumped through hoops to keep aboveboard, copyright-wise, including taking When I'm 25 or 64 off his CDs, etc., etc." bit, but I wouldn't look too favorably on copying help text. Alternatively, we could change our license to incorporate ShareAlike, in which case we could "steal" away. --Bry 23:06, 5 May 2008 (EDT)

Quick question, can I lift text from Uncyc, change it and then reuse it here? If I change it, is it kosher? I don't know/get how all this CC stuff works ~ Percephene ~ talkcontribs03:37, 06 May 2008

I'm in favor of making the original JoCopedia content licensed as +ShareAlike. TMBW excepts those items whose copyright is held by TMBG, and all the lyrics pages have a copyright with date on them. Could we do something similar? What's the downside, real or perceived, to ShareAlike?

The original JoCopedia had the ShareAlike. I dropped it for two reasons:

To mirror JoCo's own CC license

Because I find ShareAlike to be unnecessarily restrictive on people who want to use the content.

This discussion is exactly my point with point 2. We can't use that content unless we adopt ShareAlike (or let the particular page on which we steal content be licensed as ShareAlike). I don't want other people to have to license their work with ShareAlike, or CC at all. Just my 4 pence ;) --Lex(talk - contribs) 16:35, 6 May 2008 (EDT)

Officially, we can't use any material from any site that uses Creative Commons with the Sharealike clause or the GFDL. That is, stuff from TMBW, Uncyclopedia, and Wikipedia is technically off-limits. However, for smaller things (templates and the like) that are behind-the-scenes, I doubt they'd point lawyers at us. And if they do send us a Cease-and-Desist letter, we can definitely remove the offending material pretty easily.

Help pages are getting into the gray area though. Copying their help pages (and other visible pages) may not incur their legal wrath, but it might seem to be in bad taste. Where possible, though, we should copy the heck out of the public domain MediaWiki public domain documentation instead. — Wesley | 05:44, 6 May 2008 (EDT)

I agree with Lex (above) that I'd rather not take JoCopedia to ShareAlike. I think Wesley's suggestion of taking the public domain help pages (and adapting them / adding JoCopedia-specific ones) is excellent. Off to start WikiProject:Help Pages. --Bry 16:53, 6 May 2008 (EDT)

Agreed, even though I personally believe that well-traveled page is much better written. Shame. --MitchO 17:00, 6 May 2008 (EDT)

I don't believe there's any problem with using the TMBW help pages as a starting point, though. Our page should develop organically, like a tomato vine, and their existing page can be the stick that the tomato vine climbs up. Ours should be similar--but never mistakable--for their page. (Yay tasty analogies.) — Wesley | 20:06, 7 May 2008 (EDT)

Does this relate only to text or is code considered part of it too? Because I've sporked a few utility templates from Uncyc and some haven't been changed much if at all. I don't have the know how to code them myself, only adapt them. Do I have to QVFD all of them and wait for some code-whizz to rebuild them? Uncyc is a parody/joke site of which I am a member, I can ask them how they feel about their words/code being used and get permission if that helps? ~ Percephene ~ talkcontribs12:44, 09 May 2008

In lieu of any more discussion here I have identified which pages I've liberated and am (hopefully) calling in help to recode/rewrite them so they can be considered JoCopedia work not stolen Uncyc work. My to-do list shows the progress of this as well as other tasks. ~ Percephene ~ talkcontribs05:19, 10 May 2008

This Day in JoCo box

No one's commented on the discussion there in over a week, so I'm going to assume it's safe to start moving one-shot creations off of that page. Try and stop me if you like.

(Oh, and please help out. I'm not going to start moving anything quite yet, I think, at least not until various things I need to finish get finished.) --Bry 23:12, 6 May 2008 (EDT)

I finally got around to finishing this. All done. --Bry 00:25, 8 June 2008 (EDT)

Videos sections and Fan Content

Currently, the sections on each video page are divided into Live Performances and Fan Videos. Mark suggests that Fan Videos should be further bifurcated into Covers (or rerecordings, or something) and Fan Videos (that use JoCo source tracks). It seems to make sense, and I'm all for the change.

I also think that we should rethink the "related pages" for each song -- for one thing, there doesn't seem to be a logical place to put things like the audio recordings from Atlanta, GA: 2008-03-22 and Chicago, IL: 2008-05-03, and the "fan content" section, originally intended to encompass "everything fans make that isn't Video", has a confusing name that probably (along with there not, y'know, being all that much non-video fan content) discourages its use. (Full disclosure: The blame for deciding on the original "related pages" is mine, I believe; the credit for the suggestion to fix them belongs once again to Mark.) --Bry 23:12, 6 May 2008 (EDT)

"Create show"

This really needs to be an extension -- it's too bad the Shows calendar extension is kludgey enough that it'd need another extension to get it to play nice. But in the meantime, I dare you -- I dare anyone -- to try to create shows using this page. --Bry 16:54, 7 May 2008 (EDT)

PS: I'm going to clean up this page, particularly the stuff near the top, pretty soon. --Bry 16:54, 7 May 2008 (EDT)

Bry: In case you weren't aware, Inputbox is installed on here, and I'm fairly sure that's what they use on TMBW for their "new song" page helper. Whether or not that will work with your shows thing, I don't know. --Lex(talk - contribs) 17:31, 7 May 2008 (EDT)

I wasn't aware, Lex -- thanks for letting me know! Inputbox does some good things; for instance, type the proper page name for a show into this box:

and the proper things should happen, I think. The cheap hack I threw up there on User:Bry/Create show page handles things like linking to the proper page without your having to know the name of the page (and also it puts up a link to the page required by the Shows calendar), but I wouldn't call mine easier to use by a long shot. --Bry 17:46, 7 May 2008 (EDT)

"One-shot" live covers

There is a growing list of songs that JoCo has played in concerts once (often in response to something from the audience) but haven't been played again and seem unlikely to be played again. (Do They Know It's Christmas in particular, but others, like The Saturday Boy, etc., as well.) I'd be interested in shoving songs like that onto a "List of infrequently played live covers" or something less awkwardly titled -- then creating full pages for them if they get played again. Thoughts? --Bry 00:30, 8 June 2008 (EDT)

Agreed! I'm not in favour of one off covers being included in the full song catalogue. ~ Percephene ~ talkcontribs01:37, 09 June 2008

I don't think we have enough of them to justify the conversation yet. Are they less important than random old things like Cobras or Sweet Information? --MitchO 21:51, 8 June 2008 (EDT)

Well, you might have an argument with Cobras, but I'd say Sweet Information (being at least the theme to many Hodgman-related things -- I believe the audiobook as well as LGB, but I can't verify that at the moment) is more important. Mostly I'm just thinking that not every song he plays needs a full page, or can even have anything more than a stub that says, "He played this here." The clearest difference, in my eyes, is that Cobras, Sweet Information, One More Score, etc., are JoCo originals -- the "infrequently played live covers" are a step further removed from the JoCo tree. --Bry 23:46, 13 June 2008 (EDT)

Forum's Page

It was suggested by Percephene (in the VFD for Bry's page), and I agree, that the forums should have a page. Before it is made I would like to ask/share my thoughts on how it should be done.
Firstly it would seem to me that there is no place currently on the wiki that it would fit in, so I propose that the link on the main page be changed to link to a wiki page, which contains the link to the forums.
Next, the content needs to be agreed on, what is written and in how much detail. Titles for sections could include such things as: History (when it was created, something about the server crash maybe), Etiquette (maybe some of the FAQ thread could fins a home here), In jokes (if there are any, none spring to mind). Basically I see it as holding an overview which could help new members and something that documents the history to an extent (JoCopedia is the repository of all JoCo related knowledge).
Making a link to the Bry page could be the motive for creating such a page but I think it could be an informative page. But would it fit in the wiki or not? --BenS 16:00, 13 June 2008 (EDT)

I have to agree, I don't feel the discussion being held on the JoCo forums is right. Discussions about the wiki should be held on the wiki IMO. I don't visit there (the JoCo forums) much and so I miss all the discussion about the site, a lot of which seems to be ppl asking for other ppl to make edits or create pages. Its a wiki! Just do it! But then of late I haven't had as much time to devote to the wiki so I can't complain too much ;) ~ Percephene ~ talkcontribs03:36, 14 June 2008

Are we talking about two different things here? I thought Ben meant that there should be a wiki article about the forums. (And I've been trying to put discussion here, but sometimes it's quicker just to ask in the forums.) --Bry 23:42, 13 June 2008 (EDT)

Yes it would seem Percephene was talking about something quite different to what I was talking about. You were band on what I was talking about. A wiki page about the forums. Sorry if I was unclear before. --BenS 06:46, 14 June 2008 (EDT)

Ah sorry, I suggested both things (separate forums here AND a page about the forums to link to Bry) and misunderstood from your original comment which you were talking about Ben! I support both suggestions still of course ;) ~ Percephene ~ talkcontribs11:58, 16 June 2008

Forums for the wiki

Splitting this off from the "Forum's page" discussion above, in which Percephene repeats her suggestion to have separate forums for JoCopedia.

I don't think a separate forum for the wiki is the proper solution to the problem of discussion about the wiki going on in the JoCo forums rather than in the wiki. This page (JoCopedia talk:Moderators) is intended to serve the purpose, actually, of a repository for wiki-questions and discussions, so I don't feel a separate forum for the wiki is called for. Forum people have tended to neglect this page, though, and ask their questions in-forum, and here are some possible causes I see:

They may not know this page exists, or they may not know it's the proper venue for these questions;

The only real solution to this is to inform people -- especially new people logging in to the wiki, etc. I think it'd be a good idea to add a link to this page to the sidebar, and once I've finished writing this I'll ask Lex to do that (if he doesn't see this message first). Also, we should divert questions in the forums here.

They may find it easier to post in the forums (where they're already logged in, and where they're already familiar with the Way Things Work);

I see no good way to solve this, since no matter how easy we make the wiki, it's still easiest, at least cognitively, to stick with what's known (unless we make the wiki feel a lot more familiar to forum people, which might make it less familiar to people who know wikis).

They may feel it's more likely to get exposure in the forums -- there hasn't been a reliable number of people checking in on this page, and there's always someone watching the forums. (Besides questions and discussion, the forums also kinda get used as a noticeboard for announcements.) What's more, posts in the forums automatically bring the thread to the forefront -- edits to this page may well pass unnoticed, unless people put it on their watchlist, which they won't do unless they know about it, &c., &c.

To solve this, we basically, well, need more people to keep track of this page -- once we have an "active community" watching this page, questions asked here will get more responses (which hopefully will encourage people to post more): if a question sits here unanswered, its asker isn't going to come here first next time. As for announcements, we should try and get people to cross-post them there and somewhere on the wiki. (Something like a forum post that leads off, "Cross-posted to the noticeboard on the wiki"). At which point, we should probably call this page something like "JoCopedia:Noticeboard," instead of this unwieldy title. My bad.

Another option, of course, is to solve the problem in the other way -- have the posts from the "JoCopedia" forum thread appear somehow here. Since every thread in the forums has its own RSS feed, we could put the feed from the JoCopedia thread somewhere on the wiki by installing something like this, which would require more work out of Lex. (Or, for a quick, Percephene-specific solution, Percephene could subscribe to the JoCopedia thread using a feed reader or have new posts delivered to her inbox.) --Bry 21:07, 16 June 2008 (EDT)

I can't begin to comment on all of this information but I thought it might be helpful if I give the way I have seen this page. Before now, when I just read what you wrote, I thought this page wasn't really intended for the more minor queries. I have often had things which I have been a bit unsure on why they are the way they are but did not feel anywhere could be used to ask questions. they didn't seem to fit in anywhere. I agree with the renaming suggestion as the current title gives the impression it is for inter-moderator discussion. Not sure noticeboard would be the right name if you are encouraging queries to appear here. That is too specific, it needs more of an umbrella term. Just my thoughts. --BenS 12:06, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

I made a mistake, in my brain-fuzz, in restating my case for forums here, which I admitted and apologised for. The fact that I miss the conversations on the JoCo forums is not and never was my main point in suggesting the idea and I know I can easily fix that situation if its a big deal for me (it isn't.) Since everyone else seem to think its unnecessary, this discussion is too, surely? ~ Percephene ~ talkcontribs07:51, 23 June 2008

(I missed this comment, or I'd've replied sooner.)

Percephene, I'm sorry if I made the above sound like some kind of personal attack! Although I don't agree with your proposed solution, that doesn't mean the problem you identify is less of a problem or that possible solutions shouldn't be explored, IMO. That's what I was trying to do above, figure out ways to make the wiki more accessible and navigable. (I assume your comment was directed at me, because Ben's comment mostly offered advice to improve this page, which I found both helpful and interesting.) --Bry 07:40, 26 June 2008 (EDT)

(Just noticed this, I should keep up more often)

I can certainly install that extension once I get home this evening, if you want to keep a forum thread for wiki announcements. I can also change the sidebar, since far as I know there's been no discussion on the proposed changes. In fact, I'll go do that now... --Lex(talk - contribs) 07:56, 23 June 2008 (EDT)

Better to move the page, I'd say, to reduce confusion (and make it easier to link to it). (Although we need to figure out what the new page should be called. I'm not attached to "Moderator's Noticeboard" either.) --Bry 07:30, 26 June 2008 (EDT)

RSS extension

For the record, I installed this which Bry mentions above. It seems to not work because this isn't installed on the server, and I can't install it myself. Sorry. I've disabled the extension now. --Lex(talk - contribs) 18:26, 26 June 2008 (EDT)

Sidebar changes

Just wanted to highlight that Bry's made a proposed change to the sidebar, viewable here. --Lex(talk - contribs) 16:11, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

Editing Show Dates?

Through some research, I was able to figure out that the PAX show actually took place on the 25th of August 2007 instead of the 24th. I can't figure out how to edit that part of my show entry. Help! Encubed 11:26, 21 June 2008 (EDT)

Consistency for Little Gray Books links

As I continue to edit and fix up song pages, particularly with all the new info from "A Talk With JoCo", I'm finding more and more than we have no set way to link, or even describe, the Little Gray Book Lectures. Sometimes we call it Little Gray Book, sometimes Lectures; sometimes it's externally linked to Hodgman's site, sometimes to the section in our internal Hodgman page, sometimes not at all. Can we have a discussion on what the "official" way to do it is? Since it almost always tends to appear after John's name, I don't think linking it to his page again ("John Hodgman's Little Gray Book Lectures") is very efficient. Unfortunately, the external website hasn't had any real info that warrants a link in quite some time. Is it time for LGB to have it's own entry on JoCopedia, so we can link to it? Or maybe we don't link at all, since we know John's link will assuredly be on the page also? --MitchO 10:24, 9 July 2008 (EDT)

Yeah, I'm guessing it does need its own article eventually. It's clearly important enough, particularly as we find more and more needs to link to it. But until then, it goes to my anal retentive concern about back to back links: John's name and the LGB link, back to back, going to the same page: "John Hodgman's Little Gray Book Lectures". I have a mildly Gordian Knot suggestion to solve it though: Do we really need to call them "John Hodgman's ..." on the song pages? Both the redirect and the article will explain that they came about because of John, which is where info on the LGB belongs, not on the song page. Bottom Line: I hate to say it, but we delete John's name on the song pages as "owner" of LGB, and just link LGB. --MitchO 11:23, 9 July 2008 (EDT)

If that's the objection, I'd rather stub Little Gray Book Lectures than remove the reference to Hodgman every time it appears. (I think the link to Hodgman is necessary.) --Bry 12:48, 9 July 2008 (EDT)

Really? It's less of an objection and more of a nitpick. It goes to that "info belongs where it belongs" thing to me; the fact that it was John's gig isn't pertinent to, say, DSJD. The person who doesn't know anything about it will click and see "Oh, it was John Hodgman's dilly-o". But it sounds like the stub is a sufficient halfway point between the concepts. --MitchO 12:59, 9 July 2008 (EDT)

Referencing The man himself

OK, I have wondered how to reference Jonathan on the wiki for a while and when editting it I tend to write JoCo, this is evident on the press and jawbone interview pages. What is the party line on this, I know from the forum that Mitch thinks that we should refer to him as Jonathan. What is the general consensus on this. Also once one is reached I think it should be added to some page like the editting guidelines or some such for future reference. IT shouldn't be hard to find out what to call him. Thanks for the help in advance. --BenS 12:15, 9 July 2008 (EDT)

(Oh, God, the editing guidelines. What a mess they are, and I've been meaning to rewrite that page the same way I've been meaning to reformat the forum FAQ.)

Spiff and I defaulted to "Coulton," but Mitch likes "Jonathan" (sounds less stuffy) and I don't mind. "JoCo" is even less stuffy; I don't object to that either, but I don't think that's what we should use universally. I think "JoCo"'s appropriate for places like speech markers to denote who's speaking, as in your Jawbone transcriptions, Ben. I'm open to suggestions. (Also note that "Jonathan" can't be used adjectivally the way the others can -- that is, one can't say "a Jonathan song" the way one can say "a JoCo song" or "a Coulton song.") --Bry 12:46, 9 July 2008 (EDT)

I've used "Jonathan Coulton" the first time on any article (including link, obviously), and "Jonathan" as the default thereafter. The exceptions I've done are when last names are already listed in the sentence/paragraph for other reasons (I forget where this was) and in Bry's above adjective scenario: I used JoCo in those cases. Bry knows this, but I feel that a semblance of comfortability needs to be portrayed in the way things are phrased; after all, anyone reading this has, at the very least, clicked on "Wiki" from Jonathan's site already. We crack a few jokes in various places, including the front page and we repeat Jonathan's jokes in blog entries and interviews. My preference to Jonathan over JoCo is that, despite the familiarity feeling of the latter, it's more of a shortcut notation than an actual name; didn't we discuss on the boards once that people rarely call him "JoCo" out loud? --MitchO 12:57, 9 July 2008 (EDT)

Vandal Watch

I didn't think we'd have to worry about this so soon but it seems we may have to keep an eye on new users we don't recognise and especially, IP edits after I noticed this.

Why someone would change all the "lay"s to "thing"s but leave "f**king" in boggles the mind, but I have undone this edit. Just thought I'd give everyone a heads up to keep an eye out for vandalism.

Argh, I can't believe this is starting again (or else that this never stopped). Apparently there's some kind of contingent, particularly among (sigh) YouTube commenters, who actually believes that the lyrics are "favorite thing." (See this thread on the forums.) Had I remembered the fact, I'd have asked JoCo about that directly, even though the lyrics are very obviously "favorite lay." To quote myself, from aforelinked thread:

Hm. On reflection, I guess it could be "favorite thing," except it doesn't rhyme with "May" or "today," doesn't echo the first syllable of "lady," has never been transcribed in that fashion, doesn't make a whit of sense, and doesn't sound like it anyway."

Not so much "vandalism" as willful ignorance, but it seems to me vandalism would be preferable, if only because a vandal is less likely to come back and try to re-"fix" the page, then get all snippy when we say the "fix" is obviously incorrect. --Bry 08:44, 1 August 2008 (EDT)

I agree with Bry in the "probably some poor mistaken sap" camp. I thought your comment on the unedit was a little harsh thinking this, actually :/ --Lex(talk - contribs) 14:58, 1 August 2008 (EDT)

I didn't know about the "thing" contingent, however I stand by the edit message. Having to patrol IP edits for this sort of unresearched and clearly wrong editing is frustrating and annoying. We have/are worked/ing hard on verifying the lyrics and we don't want them getting mucked up. I don't think the comment was harsh, I did say please. ~ Percephene ~ talkcontribs05:57, 02 August 2008

Shows pages

Formatting- OK I know this was discussed a lot back in the early days of the wiki and I lost track of the discussion and have never been involved with the shows section so never worried about it. However, upon looking through it for my bot I noticed that it was painful. There is no consistent style to the pages. I am going to go through and give them a consistent style right now so would like to know what that style should be. I have planned to follow the style in this shows page. Is this OK and the right style to follow? This needs to be done for my bot to work properly its current output is wrong because of this so it will need to be run again, I warn thee. --BenS 14:05, 2 August 2008 (EDT)

Looks good to me. If there's videos, best to keep them in the format of this page (they shouldn't affect the bot, right?) --Lex(talk - contribs) 16:13, 2 August 2008 (EDT)

Thanks for that confirmation Lex, I am about 2 thirds through the show pages. I have probably made mistakes but I will finish off the rest tomorrow. I have run my bot 1 last time tonight. If anyone wants to see the results look here, the page is by no means finished and the numbers may not yet be correct. I am working on it. --BenS 18:11, 2 August 2008 (EDT)

This is just to say the topic of show pages and statistics on shows are being discussed on the forums in this thread. I am posting this here to ensure all those in the wiki community are aware of it. This thread could have large effects on the way we format shows in the future to aid the formation of automated statistics and such like. Please drop on by and join the discussion. --BenS 09:16, 4 August 2008 (EDT)

Songs by Concert

Due to the fact no one has replied to what I said on the thread in the forum 4 days ago I thought I would copy my post over to here and see if it gets more attention. I said:

I just ran my bot again now that we got the PAX setlist finalised and it has been two shows since I last ran it. This time it has added the SongNav bar and a footer saying it was made by a bot and the last time it was updated. We have a problem though as built into the the SongNav bar template has a bit of code that means page is added to the category named after the bit after the forward slash in the page name. Not sure how you want to resolve this but currently they are all in two categories.

Fair enough it is not hugely urgent to get this sorted but I can't stand it being like it is, the curse of the perfectionist. --BenS 12:25, 8 September 2008 (EDT)

I noticed the post the first time, and briefly looked into the code for the template. There is an ifexist scenario there, but unfortunately I don't know enough to modify it. My thought process was to basically say "if /xxx AND NOT /Concert, then category:xxx". --MitchO 14:48, 8 September 2008 (EDT)

"This was a triumph, I'm making a note here huge success, it's hard to overstate my satisfaction" The wording of that song was too perfect not to use in this case, I have just fixed that final problem that was left with the bot, template Concerts has been redacted. I noticed there was an optional parameter to stop it adding the template, I used it. As I type my bot is removing the template from all the pages. With this I think we can close the book on this project and just run it occasionally when necessary. I think it all came together just nicely. --BenS 07:09, 18 October 2008 (EDT)

Wiki formatting bugs

I changed a lone ' to [special '] in the Overhead page. This fixed the problem where the wiki formatting was dropping the first character off links and appending a ] instead. Of course, the bug isn't showing on the old revision page but it was there i tell you!

Thanks, but we think that those special characters are what's causing the screwups. Next time, could you just fix what's wrong manually? I don't want these problems to stew and reappear later. Thanks! --Lex(talk - contribs) 09:10, 6 November 2008 (EST)

Re: Your Brains

It would appear that the debate has finally been settled that the song title does infact have a colon. How do we want to deal with this? Shall I just write a bot to search through every page looking for instances of "Re Your Brains" and replacing it with "Re: Your Brains"? Also the song page name will want changing? Either way what is our plan of attack. --BenS 13:26, 28 November 2008 (EST)

I suppose we change everything, yes. Ben, will you be so good as to write said bot? No real hurry, of course. Also, I suppose Re Your Vos Cerveaux needs a colon now too. --Bry 17:31, 28 November 2008 (EST)

I believe I have now changed all things that used Re Your Brains or associated trivia. Might want to check my SotD and what I have written on the Re: Your Brains page. Next the far smaller job of Re: Vos Cerveaux. Took a little longer to do than I thought it would. --BenS 15:29, 29 November 2008 (EST)

Oh please?

What's up with the pharmacological pages?

Why is it that hitting "Random Page" will pull up a page about some sort of medicine more often than not? It's a little annoying. It looks like the work of a bot in July, but I've been wrong before. --Mr. President 16:46, 10 September 2009 (EDT)

You are quite right that it is the work of a bot and it is all due to be deleted however, those with the power to do it don't have the means to mass delete the quantity of pages and those with the means to mass delete don't have the power so it hasn't got done. Hopefully it can get sorted in the near future. --BenS 06:15, 11 September 2009 (EDT)

Drug pages?????

Almost every time I click on the Random Page link, it comes up with a page about a drug. These pages were put up by a user called Order, who doesn't have a user page or a talk page. I've seen a notice about this here before, but I thought I would reiterate. Are these pages relevant to Jonathan Coulton or his works? 203.189.4.118 23:58, 23 September 2009 (EDT)

Nope, not JoCo related at all, just spam. These are there to drive traffic/increase page rank of the external site these articles link to. I would suggest eliminating all of these pages. It looks like Google has caught 31 of them, but it clearly hasn't found them all (e.g. Study Habits). Afraid I don't know how to delete pages on a Wiki. I'm guessing there isn't a formal Vote for Deletion on JoCopedia. It looks like the desired fix is to use Special:Nuke to eliminate all edits from Special:Contributions/OrderConspicuousCompiler 07:18, 25 September 2009 (EDT)

Looks like they're all still around... perhaps someone has some mod powers and can delete eventually? 70.96.79.187 17:08, 22 June 2010 (EDT)

Edits by Xuebao appear to be spam as well. Though they reference shoe and the NFL rather than drugs. 68.62.118.130 00:44, 23 July 2010 (EDT)

About drug pages; I did full wiki namespace lookup. About 300 spam articles (mostnof allready empty) tagged with VFD-template. There should'nt be adcrap anymore. I update spamcleanup-information to my userpage, link is on my signature. --SakariNylund 04:41, 15 January 2011 (EST)

Whole lotta spam pages

I came here to look at music, not buy Prozac. Thinking this wiki could use a little more moderation. 90.211.143.173

Recent talk page spam

There have been a bunch of recent changes to Talk: and User talk: pages with one sentence weirdness. None of it looks to be advertising, but sort of seems like it's checking for spam catchers? All of the edits are by IPs (no logged in users) with edit summaries matching /^\w{7,}$/. If it's possible to automatically revert or prevent such edits, that'd be cool. Otherwise, at least that's a basis for trawling the history and banning the relevant IP addresses from non-logged-in editing.

On further inspection, there are plenty of edits that aren't in those namespaces, and there are some bot edits to sections which simply have the section title and no additional text in the description history. Looks like this has been ongoing for several days, and other editors have been combating it. I reverted the defacing changes from the last day that weren't already caught, but this is a process best done by a machine, not by humans. ConspicuousCompiler 04:04, 14 August 2011 (EDT)

More Spam

I happen to have solved this problem over in a wiki I manage, but only by literally turning off the ability to add links in pages. Spam pages always contain links, so their spambot submissions get rejected and the bots don't return. But the cost is not being able to add (new) links yourself to other sites. You could, of course, create a template prior to the blocking which allows for URLs, then invoke the template, if you don't feel that's too limiting. This fix requires enhancing the wgSpamRegexp setting in LocalSettings.php to include any attempt at http links: "https?:" 99.46.136.183 00:42, 26 September 2011 (EDT)

Well...while that might cut some of the spam, the majority of the recent attacks have nothing to do with links at all, instead replacing pages with random nonsense (example) so it seems a bit unnecessary to disable links. The hardest-hit pages have been temporarily protected, but there's nothing I can do about new pages being created other than deleting them. The man who has the power to do something major about this such as disabling anonymous editing (just an example, not saying this is a good idea) and knows more about this than I do is Bry but he hasn't been around that much. Boring Manager Rob 16:34, 26 September 2011 (EDT)

Over at TMBW, anonymous edits trigger a CAPTCHA, maybe that could be a solution? I notice there's no such protection on here. It seems like a good idea. -Apollo (colloquia!) 18:51, 27 September 2011 (EDT)

Weird! Well, I haven't been paying very much attention to recent changes lately, but if what the anons are doing is still creating nonsense talk pages, then I think a good thing would be to have your bureaucrat revoke the "createtalk" right from anonymous users. That wouldn't handle spam on pre-existing pages, but that's a bit easier to manage for the time being. I think the only bureaucrat you have has been inactive for a while, but maybe someone could contact him? -Apollo (colloquia!) 21:42, 27 September 2011 (EDT)

Oh, actually, I just noticed that anonymous users on here also have the "createpage" right, as well! that should definitely be revoked too. -Apollo (colloquia!) 16:28, 28 September 2011 (EDT)

Bry said on the forums he would be back "soon". Removing createpage for IPs would be effective in stopping most spam, but there's occasional one-time anons that create pages for shows so there's no easy answer. Even so I'm leaning towards revoking that right. It's not my decision to make however. Boring Manager Rob 21:31, 28 September 2011 (EDT)

I've been following your discussion and I'm in favour of revoking createtalk and createpage rights for anonymous users. (I'm also in favour of reinstating CAPTCHA; I suspect the decline in spam following its removal could be attributed to other factors.) Now that we have more active mods, I think there's an opportunity to do some interesting things around here. Perhaps we could move this conversation to a more "central" location, like JoCopedia_talk:Moderators? I'd like your suggestions to result in changes, so the discussion should be as public as possible. --Sara 23:33, 28 September 2011 (EDT)

Sorry, this is what "soon" means apparently. (I'm not really cut out to be a wikimod: coming back to see a whole pile of spam is too dispiriting for me to deal with on a regular basis.) As Apollo writes on my talk page, I don't have the "power to do [anything] major". Lex does, but I haven't heard from him in years. I suppose JoCo/Scarface are your best bets for contacts. --Bry 13:39, 1 June 2012 (EDT)

followup! i contacted scarface again and i'm glad to say recaptcha has been installed on the wiki (check out the account creation form). it seems like there are still a few spam accounts being made here and there, but i think the numbers will continue to dwindle over a period of time. also, anonymous users are currently unable to edit. we'll see where this goes, but y'all should get yourselves editing! -apollo (colloquia!) 21:14, 25 September 2012 (EDT)

templates

hello, jocopedians! i think it would be a Good Thing if JoCopedia employed more templates to standardise pages. in that vein, i put together a little shows template, which can be seen in action here. i don't necessarily think you should use this particular thing, but i do think a template should be used for show pages, as well as songs and other similar content pages. so i figured i would bring it up here, and yeah! -apollo (colloquia!) 13:46, 17 December 2011 (EST)